When comparing Lakka vs Pop!_OS, the Slant community recommends Pop!_OS for most people. In the question“What is the best OS for gaming?” Pop!_OS is ranked 3rd while Lakka is ranked 13th. The most important reason people chose Pop!_OS is:
If you're a fan of flat desktop interfaces reminiscent of Material design on Android, you'll like the theme that comes as a default in Pop! OS. The desktop and title bars all use a bright turquoise theme that makes the interface feel happy and borderline retro-chic. I found it to be like something you'd find printed on a ringer t-shirt.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Good support for controllers
Most controllers are configured automatically.
Pro Built on top of RetroArch
It's based on RetroArch OS
Pro Cores (emulator support) can be downloaded via interface
It's easy to add new emulators, even if you compile them yourself.
Pro First to get new Retroarch features implemented directly
Because they're part of the RA team, of course. :)
Pro Highly configurable
A lot of customizations and advanced options available.
Pro Supports different frontends
Lakka has different frontends in case your IoT is too slow for the default one.
Pro Different interfaces for different scenarios
Some interfaces like rgui makes the OS possible to run fine even in the Raspberry Pi 1st gen.
Pro Pop! makes GNOME look really good
If you're a fan of flat desktop interfaces reminiscent of Material design on Android, you'll like the theme that comes as a default in Pop! OS. The desktop and title bars all use a bright turquoise theme that makes the interface feel happy and borderline retro-chic. I found it to be like something you'd find printed on a ringer t-shirt.
Pro User-friendly installer
The visually appealing and easy to use installer makes dual booting as easy as it can be.
Pro Nice gnome theme dy default
Has nice gnome theme looks really good.
Pro Ready to play games, out of the box
If you still miss how easy it was to just click-install and play games in Windows, Pop! will give you that similar expectation.
Pro A separate NVIDIA version
Most linux distros seem to hate Nvidia's graphics cards e.g. Fedora and OpenSUSE. System76 have decided to be kind. They have decided to form a good relationship with Nvidia fans and Nvidia itself. By creating a separate installation media that is dedicated for providing support to Nvidia's graphics cards. Even going as far as putting Nvidia's driver updates on Pop!_Shop for users to easily access and install.
Pro Optimized for modern hardware
Whereas normally, to use a brand new computer with a Linux OS, you would typically try to use unstable and sometimes buggy drivers - or struggle without hardware support until a stable release comes along.
Pro Made by a hardware seller
System76 is a hardware company. It configures machines to ship with Linux pre-installed. This means its entire business model centers around delivering a quality desktop Linux experience.
As a result, the company pours more attention onto the desktop. It can fix visual issues and may be able to provide a smoother overall experience than you would have installing a different version of Linux on your machine yourself. Providing Pop!_OS also empowers System76 to make certain fixes for users directly rather than having to coordinate with Canonical or the broader Ubuntu community.
Cons
Con Terrible User-Interface
The interface includes various submenus which makes it very hard to use
Con Needs the whole Disk
There is no option to install the system in dual-boot with another OS on one hard disk drive.
Con Adding new games and scans can be difficult if you don't have some knowledge
You need some knowledge if you want to add a different rom (lakka, like retroarch, supports only no-intro naming, there's no generic scan like emulationstation).
Con No built-in GUI to manage Bluetooth devices
It needs to be done over the CLI.
Con Uses RetroArch
A multi-emulator needs to make compromises.
Con No persistent BlueTooth pairing
Every time you restart Lakka it will lose all of its BlueTooth devices.
Con 64-bit only
Some older PCs still have 32 Bit processors. This limitation will be a major con for those who use an older PC since they will not be able to install, run it in a VM or live media